the debt ceiling and the battle over that that will play out over the next 60 days. it strikes me that if you do not put the economy on a firmer foundation none of this means anything, does it. >> reporter: you know, bill, you would think so. i think that one of the things that's happened here is because the economy did not really recover in the way we accustomed to before the 2012 election one imagined that president obama would be in all sorts of political trouble and a likely looser. a lot of us thought that, including me. well he won. this president may now have the view that he can defy political gravity and if the economy doesn't get a lot bet and it limps along at its anemic rate of growth his party can survive all that and he can go forward with an aggressive a skwrepbd today, he really does have a bigger mandate than you would think looking at the vote totals that he has, he has the republicans on defense and it's time to go for it, and if they buck him they will be the ones that pay the price in the mid-term elections in two years putting him in an even str